


Bring Me Back

by kaianieves



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/F, Flashbacks, Temporary Character Death, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-12 10:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16871212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaianieves/pseuds/kaianieves
Summary: This is a series that was uploaded from my Tumblr blog. Warnings for this chapter: violent outburst, canon-typical self doubt and anxiety, canon-typical violence, a swear or two, and a little blasphemy for fun.





	1. Chapter 1

I woke up soaking wet. Everything around me was cold. I opened my eyes, glancing around quickly. Last thing I remembered I was… Home. Oregon. The house was snowed in, and my mom had made her and I hot chocolates. We were watching Saturday morning cartoons, wrapped up in fuzzy blankets. It was warm and inviting.

This was not that. I felt cold, and heavy. Everything felt heavy. My body was weighed down by something. I tried sitting up, but there was too much weight on top of me. I tried pushing it off, pulling my hand back in disgust at whatever it was. I looked at my hand. It was covered in mud. I was covered in mud. Lightning flashed above me, outlining tall trees. Where was I?

I tried sitting up, this time putting more effort into it. It felt like my back was being peeled off of something. I turned around to see a muddy wooden board behind me. That’s what I had been laying on. I pushed mud off my legs, taking a moment to stand up.

Everything hurt, like my body hadn’t moved in ages. I looked down at myself, peering past the dirt. Leather jacket, jeans. Nothing to give me a sense of when I was last walking around. I unzipped my jacket, looking at the almost perfectly preserved shirt. It was one of Charlie’s.

Charlie Bradbury. I had met her through the Winchester brothers on a vampire hunt. I tried thinking back to the last time I’d seen her.

_“Are you sure you want to do this alone?” she asked._

_“Yes, Charlie. It’s just a djinn hunt. No biggie. I’ll be in and out of Wisconsin, and then right back here to you,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. She eyed me warily, and I smiled, trying to get her to feel better about my decision._

I was pulled back to the present as lightning flashed overhead again. The cold was starting to settle in. I looked around again, walking forward through the mud. My boots squelched with every step. Eventually, I could see a less muddy but still damaged hill, half covered and grass, half sliding downwards. There must have been a landslide or something. But why was I here?

A few more steps and my question was answered. Two sticks, wrapped together with twine to make a cross were sticking out of the mud. That’s when I remembered.

_“Dean, I think I really messed up,” I whispered into the phone. I was hiding behind a dresser, the bedroom door jammed with a chair underneath the doorknob._

_“What do you mean, Y/N? Where are you?” Dean asked._

_“They’re coming for me, and I know you’re not gonna’ make it in time,” I said. The djinn hadn’t been one, or two, but five. And evidently, too much for me to handle._

_“You’re going to be fine, Y/N. Just tell me where you are,” Dean said._

_“No,” I said, but it was mixed in with a cry. “No. It’s not safe. And-and I can’t just stay in here hiding. I’m gonna’ die sooner or later tonight.” I stood up, making my decision. “Don’t come, Dean. We’ll figure it out, alright? We always do,” I said. I thought about it for another second, then said, “Promise me something.”_

_“Yeah, Y/N?” “Bring me back, Dean. Please. Jump through cosmic hoops or whatever, but bring me back.” The doorknob stopped moving for a moment, before I heard someone slamming into it from the other side. “And tell Charlie I love her.” With that, I hung up the phone, tossing it onto the carpeted floor. I approached the door, moving the chair away from it. “Let’s get this party started,” I mumbled._

_I was able to take out three of them before the other two finally got me. I remember feeling hazy for a bit before falling asleep._

_Where I woke up, though, was my favourite dream. I was scrubbing dishes, looking up every once in a while to see two little girls running around in the front yard. My little girls. Our little girls. Warm arms wrapped around my waist, and a kiss was planted on my cheek. I smiled. “Hey, honey,” I sighed, leaning back into her._

_“Hello,” Charlie said, hugging me tighter. “How was your day?” she asked._

_“The usual. Did some grocery shopping, picked the girls up from school. Apparently Celene has a soccer game this weekend.” I turned around, looking at Charlie. She smiled._

_“What?” I asked._

_“Oh, I don’t know. Just the whole… Domesticity thing suits you,” she said._

_“Aw, thank you, breadwinner, my saviour, my lady lord,” I said sarcastically._

_“No, not like that,” Charlie said. “It’s just nice, seeing you happy. Seeing you smile, and it not being induced by adrenaline from killing a vampire and covered in blood.”_

_“Mhm,” I hummed, kissing her. “Well thank you. And you definitely just saved yourself there,” I laughed. We turned to look out the window, watching the girls run around and play. “Do you think we did alright?” I asked._

_“Yeah, I think we did,” Charlie said._

A guttural scream ripped through me. It felt like someone had just knifed me through the heart. I had died. I had died, and I left Charlie here all alone. I had died, and that had all been a dream. My mother had been a distant memory. None of that goodness was real.

I dropped to my knees in front of the cross. After sobbing for a while, I got back up. I pulled the cross out of the ground. I don’t know why. Maybe because it was something. Something in a muddy landscape of nothing.

I started walking down the hill. I could feel mud sliding from my hair down my back. More squelching with every step, but eventually I made it to the hill. Looking down, I could see a road. It was blocked off with a sea of mud and trees, but there weren’t any police or emergency crews. Telling by the darkness of the sky, it was late. Or early. Nobody would know about the landslide, or even be here, for at least another couple hours.

Eventually I got down onto the road. I looked back up to where I had came from. It was the edge of the woods, from the looks of it. Someone had buried me there. That thought made me look away and ahead of me, to the road. It was foggy, and seemed like the middle of nowhere. I had a feeling I’d be walking a long time.

I stopped walking when the sun was just starting to rise and I noticed a truck stop. The bright fluorescent lights hurt my eyes. There was only one truck pulled up to the station, and it was empty. I hid behind it, avoiding being seen by the worker inside the stop.

I tried the handle, but it was locked. “Dammit,” I mumbled. I started looking around for something to open it, when I remembered something Sam showed me.

_“Alright, so if you ever need to break into a car, but don’t have anything around you, you take off your jacket,” he said, following his own instructions. “You wrap your arms in it, and then,” he slammed his arms through the old 1990 Chevy’s window, glass flying everywhere._

That was in an old scrap yard in Tennessee. A few months after Bobby died, a few weeks before I met Charlie.

I took off my jacket, wrapping my arms in it. Then I slammed my arms through the window, glass flying everywhere. I removed my arms from the jacket, laying it over the jagged bottom of the window and reaching inside for the door handle. The door swung open, and I quickly got inside. I looked around the seats for anything; hopefully a phone.

“C'mon, c'mon,” I said, annoyed. Then I spotted a wallet jammed between the seats. I pulled it out, opening it. It had a few dollars and some change. Maybe there was a payphone inside.

I hopped out of the truck, closing the door and taking my jacket from the window. It had some rips in the sleeve and was still semi-caked in mud, but was otherwise fine. I shook the glass out, then put it back on. I walked towards the truck stop, the worker finally spotting me.

“Ma'am, are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “There was, um, a landslide. I got caught in it. Is there any chance you have showers?” I asked. There was no point in lying. The woman nodded, pointing to a doorway that led to a staircase. There was a sign that read, “Shower, Public Laundry”.

My clothes were in the washer as I tried my best to get all the dirt off of me. My hair was especially a challenge, but I got most of the mud out.

I stood in a towel next to the dryer for twenty minutes, hoping no one would come upstairs. In that time, all I could think about was what’d happened. The dream world with Charlie, and whatever that was before I woke up in the woods. Was that Heaven? I’d have to ask the boys later.

There was that, too. How was I going to get home? Was I even close to home. Last time I had checked, I was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but that probably wasn’t the case anymore.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by the dryer buzzing, signalling that my clothes were done. They weren’t exactly dry, but they were better than before. I changed quickly, stepping into my soggy boots. I had managed to get most of the mud out and off of them, though, so I wasn’t complaining.

I grabbed the wooden cross from on top of the dryer, then made my way back down the stairs and back into the main store of the truck stop. The lady behind the counter eyed me as I made my way around the shelves. I spotted a row of fridges and scanned the items. Now that I wasn’t covered in mud in the middle of the woods, my body took the time to let me know I was starving. I grabbed a plastic wrapped sandwich and a water bottle. I put them in front of the lady, waiting for her to scan the items. She looked mildly shocked, like she was expecting me to steal instead of pay for it. Then she smiled at me, scanning the items and putting them in a plastic bag with a smiley face on it. I handed her a few bills, and started for the door before I stopped. Clean clothes, check, food, check, cash, illegal check. But no way of getting home.

“Hey, is there like a bus stop around here?” I turned around, asking her.

“A few miles from here, yeah. If ya keep walkin’, you’ll spot it,” she said. I couldn’t place her accent, but it wasn’t Wisconsin.

“And, this is gonna’ sound weird, but what state are we in?” I asked.

She tilted her head in confusion before saying, “Kansas, sweetheart. Where else?” I just smiled, saying a quick thank you before leaving.

“And just when I was about to make a Wizard of Oz joke,” I said to myself. I put the cross in the plastic bag, making my way back onto the road, walking again. Hopefully I’d be able to find that bus station soon. If I was close to home, I wanted to get there as soon as possible.

A/N: Alright, so I might write a second part to this, because I really like this idea. Also, I just love love love Charlie Bradbury and I want to write her with heart wrenching angsty love and the return of a loved one. Maybe I’m just a little evil.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a series that was uploaded from my Tumblr blog. Warnings for this chapter: violent outburst, canon-typical self doubt and anxiety, canon-typical violence, a swear or two, and a little blasphemy for fun.

I arrived at the bus station just as the sun was rising. I had drank all my water on the way there, and I just had my sandwich and the cross in the bag.

When I opened the door to the bus station, I could see a few people slumped in benches, waiting for buses at this ungodly hour. Although, I had just been literally raised from the dead, so I shouldn’t have been judging what was or wasn’t ungodly.

There was a desk with a sign that read, ‘TICKETS’. I walked over, spotting a tired looking old man behind it.

“Hi,” I said, making the man look up. “I’d like to buy a bus ticket.”

“Where to?” he asked.

“Lebanon, Kansas. Or as close as possible,” I said. He looked back down, typing something into his ancient computer.

“We have a bus coming in two hours to Cawker City with a stop in Wichita, and one from there to Lebanon,” he said.

“Sure, I’ll take it,” I said, getting out my stolen wallet.

He typed some more things into the computer, and the small printer in front of him made a squealing noise before spitting out a slip of paper. He handed it to me, looking at me expectantly. “That’ll be forty dollars.”

I opened the wallet, reaching in and offering him two twenty dollars. He took them, spinning in his chair and opening a cash register behind him. Turning back to the computer, he printed a receipt, handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, walking away. I sat at an empty bench, staring at the ticket. The ink was kind of splotchy on the ticket, but you could still read it clearly. ‘Depart: ELK CITY, KS. 8:00 A.M. Arrival: CAWKER CITY, KS. 12:15 P.M.. Transfer To: CAWKER CITY, KS. Depart. 12:30 P.M. to LEBANON, KS. Arrival: 1:00 P.M.’

I was going home. I’d be home today, in less than twelve hours. What was I gonna’ say? How would they all react? During my walk to the bus station, I imagined it like this. Charlie starting to cry, but hugging me. Sam surprised, but happy to see me. Dean with a knowing look on his face, maybe even a smirk. Cas passively happy for me to be alive again, and maybe he’d even offer me an awkward welcome back hug. Calculated and predictable, but wholesome and just what I needed. My grand and spectacular welcome back to the land of the living was going to be not so grand and spectacular. And that’s just what I wanted.

I looked up from the ticket, looking around the station. A bus to who-knows-where pulled into the bus parking area, and an attendant, a young woman in a blue vest with the bus company’s logo, assisted an old lady with her luggage. She was pretty. Very pretty.

That made me think something. What if Charlie had moved on? I mean, who knew how long I’d been dead? She could’ve found someone, and could be living happily with them. Who was I to intrude on that?

Posthumously, I’d be fine with it. Happy for her, even. I knew before if I ever died, I wanted her to move on and find someone who made her happy. But you aren’t conscious anymore when you die. And with me pulling a Buffy Summers, I didn’t want her to have moved on. That’s when the thought hit me.

“Maybe what’s dead should stay dead,” I said aloud. Maybe Dean, many brotherly revivals and many years ago, was right. I should stay dead, right? Or at least dead to them. I could skip out on Lebanon, settle in Cawker City or something. Or, hustle some folks and get out of Kansas entirely. Move on, make a new life somewhere else. Like California. Or Maine. Maine was always nice, right?

My brain started coming up with alternative reactions to my return. Crying, and not happy crying. In the trauma re-hashing type of way. That was another thing. They’d all grieved. Everyone in my life had dealt with my death. Not healthily, not responsibly, knowing them. They had dealt with it in their own way, though. What gave me the right to waltz my un-corpse in there and ruin that?

Would my return hurt more than it would help? My mind tried to remedy this question with some more Dean wisdom.

_ “We’re always gonna’ be better with than without you, Y/N,”  _ he said in my mind. As I stared at a payphone across the room from me, I hoped that was true. Because if not, what I was doing would be something I’d never forgive myself for.

I got up from the bench, getting out my wallet again and counting my change. When I counted enough, which was all of it, I pushed it into the tiny slot, trying to remember someone’s phone number. Everything was a little jumbled in my mind, so it was kind of like phone call roulette.

I waited as the phone rang, breathing deeply to feel less like my chest cavity was about to implode. Then someone picked up the phone.

“Hello?” she asked. She sounded tired, like I’d just woken her up. I tried saying something, but I just  _ couldn’t.  _ What did you say to the love of your life after you’d just came back to life. ‘Hi’ seemed like a horrible option. Though it was probably better than standing there, breathing into the phone.

“Hello?” she asked, and I figured she was sitting up now as I heard movement from her end. “Is anyone there? Hello?” she continued. I slammed the phone down on the receiver. The noise frightened another person sitting on a nearby bench, causing him to give me a glare.

I stared at the phone. I had it, I was right there, and I threw it away. I didn’t have any more change to call her back, or even call Sam or Dean. I turned around, returning to my spot on the bench. I spent the next hour and forty five minutes switching between mentally kicking myself for hanging up, and imagining the less-than-pleasant potential arrival scenarios.

By the time the pretty bus station worker from before came to check my ticket, I was an anxious mess.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” she asked. I looked up, now noticing that I had just been staring at that payphone. “Can I see your ticket?” I glanced at the large analog clock hanging behind me. 7:57 A.M..

“Um, sure,” I said, handing it to her. She looked it over before smiling and handing it back to me.

“Right this way,” she said. I got up, grabbing my plastic bag following her through a glass door to the side of a large bus. “Do you have any luggage?” she asked.

“No, thanks.” She smiled and nodded, leading me to the bus’ entrance door.

“Safe travels,” she said as I boarded. I smiled and nodded back at her, passing the bus driver. I sat at the very back of the bus, watching through the window as the worker helped two other people load their luggage into the bottom of the bus. I was hoping I’d fall asleep during the ride to pass the time and avoid my thoughts for a little while.

I didn’t. When we stopped in Wichita, I was still awake. We picked up ten other people, none of them sitting close to me, which I appreciated. Maybe sitting in the back translated that I wanted to be left alone. Or maybe I just went unnoticed.

About an hour away from Cawker City, I started getting hungry, so I ate my sandwich from the truck stop. It tasted as you’d expect; not very good, but it was sort of filling. I was getting thirsty, but we wouldn’t be stopping for another little while. Even then, I had no money left. I stared out the window the rest of the way, wondering what I was going to do when we got there.

An hour later, I was living what I was going to do. I got off the bus, looking around outside. It was sunny, and dry. Kansas for sure. Inside the bus station, there were more people than in Elk City, but less than in Wichita. I walked up to an identical ticket booth to the one thousands of miles away, seeing a young girl in the seat.

“Hi,” I said. “Is there a water fountain around?” I asked.

“No, sorry ma’am,” she said. I smiled, walking away, sitting down on another goddamn bench. I knew anxious thoughts were going to consume me, so I tried thinking something positive. I ended up taking a walk down memory lane, since there wasn’t anything extremely positive in the current.

I remembered the day I met Sam and Dean. My father was a hunter buddy way back when with John, and he sent me down to check on the boys after he heard the news of their dad’s death. I ended up saving Sam’s skin on a vampire hunt.

_ I sliced the vamp’s head off, blood splattering on Sam’s face. It made him look like an adorable murder puppy. Dean skid into the room, gun trained on me. _

_ “Who are you?” he asked. _

_ “Well hiya to you, too,” I smiled. Dean kept a stern face. “I’m Y/N. My dad was a hunting buddy of your dad’s, sent me to give you our condolences and… Check on you,” I said, offering Sam a hand up. He took it, smiling at me. _

_ “Yeah, well, we don’t need to be checked on,” Dean said harshly. _

_ I raised my hands defensively. “Woah, down boy. I’m just here ‘cause my dad asked me,” I said. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but your little bro here was almost a vamp’s main course, so maybe ya do.” Dean’s jaw ticked. _

_ “Yeah, um, thanks. For that,” Sam said. _

_ “Oh, you’re welcome sweetheart,” I said. He smiled at me. “You got a little something.” I motioned to his face. _

And that was it. I kept running into them on hunts, and eventually Dean started warming up to me. I was pretty sure Sam had a crush on me for a little while, until I point blank told both of them I wasn’t really into, well, men. Both of them looked like they’d been slapped in the face, until Dean started laughing and clapped me on the shoulder, mumbling something about being my wing man.

When my dad was killed by a demon, they were there for me. Steered me off the revenge path. Comforted me, helped me move on. I remember when Sam died, I was a little gutted. I hadn’t known them for long, but it still hurt. Then a week later, Bobby called me to tell me Sam was up and ticking. I thought it was a miracle, until a year later, after a few more hunts with the boys here and there, he called me again to tell me Dean was gone. That one hurt a lot more. I’d known them for longer, gotten closer to them. Dean had really accepted me. Sam had, too, but that wasn’t the point.

Suddenly, there was a bus pulling up to the bus station. Another attendant, a man who looked to be in his mid-forties walked over to me from an elderly woman with a suitcase. He opened his mouth, probably to ask to see my ticket, when a horrible popping noise came from outside. Smoke rose from near the bus, and the worker rushed over and out the doors to see what had happened. Knowing vehicles, I knew it wasn’t good. I sighed, slumping back into the bench.

Ten minutes later, the worker went onto the PA system to announce the bad news. “I’m sorry to say this, folks, but the bus from Cawker City to Lebanon has broken down, and we won’t be able to make the trip.” There was concern on people’s faces, which made sense. They had business trips, or were visiting family. It was especially concerning for me, seeing as I’d just come back to life and all.

I walked up to the man, whom was still in the booth, talking to the young girl from earlier. “Hi,” I said, interrupting their conversation.

“Hello,” she said. “What can I help you with?”

“So, is there another bus to Lebanon coming soon, or…?” I trailed off.

“I’m afraid not, ma’am,” the man answered.

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“You’ll have to find another way to Lebanon, ma’am. Sorry,” she said.

“But that’s _your_ job. _You_ are my way of getting to Lebanon,” I said harshly.

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. Sorry.”

“If I hear another fucking sorry from you, I swear–”

“Ma’am, please calm down,” the man started, but I reached into the booth, grabbing him by his stupid vest.

“Call me ma’am another time, and I’ll kill you right here, okay? I just came back to life like goddamn Jesus, walked for miles to get to a bus station to take me here so that  _ you’re bus _ can take me home. I broke into a fucking semi and stole a wallet to get there, so you better get me there,” I said angrily. I pushed the man away, walking away from the ticket booth. I could hear the woman dialing her phone, presumably the police. I couldn’t stay here anymore, that’s for sure.

Maybe this was a sign from God. People got those, right? Signs from God himself. I mean, Sam and Dean did, what seemed like pretty frequently.

_ But when have you or anyone you’ve known, especially the Winchesters, listened to God?  _ I thought. The answer to that question was easy.

I walked out of the bus station, all eyes on me as I slammed the glass door behind me. I could hear distant sirens, so I kept walking. Walking, and walking. That seemed to be all I was doing. Eventually I turned around, and I couldn’t see the bus station. It didn’t look like I was anywhere near it. Now that I wasn’t thinking about escaping the cops, or visiting old memories, the thoughts flooded back in. With the new addition of God’s will, of course.

_ Don’t do this. _

_ They don’t want you back. _

_ “What’s dead should stay dead.” _

I was being consumed by “what if” and ideas of the psychological torment I’d bring the ones I loved. But I wanted to go home. It was finally getting to me. The tiredness. I didn’t feel like I could run a marathon anymore, I didn’t feel wide awake. I was tired, and I just wanted to go home and be held by someone. Anyone. Charlie.

I started running. No more walking, I was running. I didn’t care that I didn’t have the energy, that was just more of a motivator. I wanted to go home.

I didn’t stop running when my lungs were burning. I tripped over a rock and face planted into the gravel. There was a stinging on my forehead, but I still got up and kept running. I was panting, thirsty, but I kept running. I kept away the concerns with the thought of, “When I’m home, everything will be okay.” Everything was going to be okay.

“Everything’s gonna’ be okay,” I said. “Everything’s gonna’ be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be–”

I stopped running, only because I noticed I was crying. Standing still helped me realize my thirst. And the weird feeling substance running from my forehead to my cheek. Standing still helped me notice how the world was just a little lopsided, just a little hazy. It helped me realize that I really shouldn’t have been running in Kansas heat. That’s when I passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Abuse mention, murder implied, internal tissue description, probably inaccurate medical babble.
> 
> This is a series from my Tumblr blog. I have not edited it, spare a few typos.

“Mornin’ Sammy,” Dean said, walking into the library.

“Morning, Dean,” I said as he sat across from me. He was wearing his robe again this morning, drinking a cup of coffee in that stupid mug of his. “Lookin’ for a case?” he asked.

“Yep. Nothing so far, though, so it might be a quiet weekend,” I said. Dean laughed.

“I doubt it. When was the last time we had a quiet weekend?” Dean asked. Both of us, simultaneously? Never. Me? Probably when Dean went to Purgatory. But it was still the morning, and I wasn’t planning on bringing that up.

“Never,” I said.

“Exactly,” Dean agreed. Seeing nothing in any news articles that screamed “us,” I shut the laptop. I sighed. “Nothing? Really?” Dean asked.

“Nothing.”

“Well if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my room,” Dean smiled. I sat back, putting my feet on the table and laying back. A break, however short it may be, was appreciated. I ended up falling asleep like that, waking up to straws in my nose. I snorted, kicking the table as I snorted. I pulled the straws out of my nose, catching Dean laughing in front of me.

“Dean! Really?” I asked.

“Aw, c’mon Sammy. You’d take the same opportunity with me, you know it.” Dean continued to chuckle.

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said, placing the straws down on the table. “Because I’m not five.” I sat up straight, opening the laptop to have something to do. The time at the bottom read thirty minutes past noon. A news report popped up on my search engine, and I clicked on it.

A video loaded up, then started playing. “I’m Sandra Lang, reporting outside Cawker City near Downs on Highway 24, where a young woman has been found unconscious and dehydrated, suffering from a severe head wound. Police reports say a woman of the same description was reported to have physically assaulted and threatened a bus station worker nearby before leaving the scene. She was said to be talking about being, quote, “Revived like goddamn Jesus.” She is now being taken to a local hospital for treatment and further observation.”

Dean was watching over my shoulder. “Must be the heat or something,” Dean said, walking into the kitchen. Something felt off, though.  _ “Goddamn Jesus.”  _ I’d heard that somewhere before, I knew I had.

I followed him into the kitchen. “Haven’t we known someone who said that?” I asked.

“Said what?” he asked, head in the fridge.

“”Goddamn Jesus.” Didn’t… Y/N used to say that?” I asked, making the connection.

“Uh, yeah. I think she did. Talked about the irony of it, because people consider Jesus to be God, so how could he be ‘goddamned’ or something. Why?” he asked.

“Because that was what that woman was quoted to have said to that bus station worker. In the news report we just watched?”

“C’mon, you don’t think Y/N’s–” He looked me in the eye, disbelief coloring his face. “Y/N’s dead, Sam. We buried her in-in Elk City years ago,” Dean said, but I could tell there was some doubt in his eyes.

“Yeah, like she specifically asked us not to do. Or, well, asked you,” I said. He gave me a look. “What? It was her dying wish, literally, and you buried her anyway.”

“Because that’s what she really would’ve wanted,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.

“My point is, it wouldn’t hurt to just check it out. If I’m wrong, and it’s just some random girl, then I’ll leave it alone,” I reasoned.

Dean sighed. “Fine,” he said, shutting the fridge door and leaving the kitchen.

We pulled up to Osborne County Memorial Hospital, and Dean looked up at it dauntingly. I opened my door, getting out and making my way inside. I looked around, spotting a front desk. I walked over, pulling out my fake badge and flashing it to the nurse. “Hi, I’m Agent Wells,” I said, turning and seeing Dean rushing in behind me, “And this is Agent Betts. We’re here on an investigation. Is there any chance we could speak to the young woman who was found on Highway 24?” I asked smoothly. The woman typed something into her computer.

“She’s currently in the ICU, unconscious,” the nurse said.

“We just need to speak to a nurse, then. She’s potentially a part of a case we’re investigating.”

“There should be someone up there who can speak to you,” she smiled. “Seventh floor.”

“Thanks,” I said, walking away with Dean behind me. I pressed the up button, waiting for the elevator.

“Do you really think it’s her?” Dean asked as the doors opened.

“I don’t know what to think, Dean. I mean, if it is her, how? She was buried, no one made any deals, and suddenly she’s back, walking around Kansas,” I said.

“Do you think she’s angry with us?” Dean asked. I could tell he was feeling guilty about going against her last request. I didn’t know whether to comfort him or accuse him. Neither seemed helpful right now.

“I don’t think she knows what to think,” I said. Dean sighed.

The doors opened, and we stepped out, looking around. We headed left, looking in doors for her. Eventually a nurse spotted us. “Excuse me? Can I help you?” she asked.

“We’re looking for someone who came in here recently. Unconscious woman found on the highway,” Dean said. The nurse nodded in recognition, walking towards her room.

“And who are you, exactly?” she asked. It was Dean’s turn to pull out the badge.

“FBI. She’s a potential victim in an… Abuse case we’re working. Husband kept her and a few other girls in his basement for years,” he paused. “She’s the only one who made it out alive.”

The nurse grimaced, opening the door and entering. Dean hesitated, so I walked in front of him. There she was, full human body hooked up to intravenous tubes and machines all around her. Dean stepped in beside me. I guess one of his questions was answered now. That was definitely Y/N.

“Makes sense,” the nurse said. “Her internal tissue was… complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I asked.

“Well, according to the doctor, all of her organs and everything were fine, but… It was all healed tissue,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“You’re born with original muscle and organ tissue, and the average person usually keeps that same tissue ‘til the day they die, but her,” she paused. “Original muscle tissue especially looks different from healed muscle tissue. All of her muscles are exactly that: healed. Which we found a little peculiar. But from what you’re saying, it makes sense. He must’ve just… Hurt her,  _ everywhere. _ ” I saw Dean cringe at that.

“Anything else you can tell us?” I asked.

“She’s hooked up to intravenous fluids right now, and there’s a gash on her forehead, but we don’t think it’s infected. Just required a couple stitches. She’ll probably be here for the next few days,” the nurse said.

“When do you think she’ll wake up?” Dean asked.

“Once her fluids are back up, which should be soon, any time. It’s just all up to her,” the nurse said, looking back at Y/N. I glanced at her, laying there. It didn’t seem real.

“Well, thank you, nurse,” I glanced at her name tag, “Johnson.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, leaving the room. When the door shut behind her, I looked to Dean.

“How is this even possible?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking back at her. It was good to see her face. It looked the same as when we had last seen her. “How long has it been?” I asked. Dean tilted his head in confusion. “Since she died,” I elaborated.

“Five years, give or take,” Dean said. He laughed to himself. “She hasn’t aged a day,” he said.

I suddenly found myself a little angry. Of course she hadn’t. “She was dead,” I said. Dean’s little smile fell, and he looked back at Y/N.

“Well, we need to call Charlie,” Dean said.

“Isn’t she off investigating Roanoke?” I asked.

“Not anymore,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Angst, drunk driving mention, a little talk of dead bodies.
> 
> This is a series from my Tumblr blog. I didn't edit this, spare a few typos.

When I got a call from Sam in the early afternoon, I can’t say I was exactly surprised. That strange breathing phone call earlier that morning should have been the first warning sign: there was something after us again.

“Sam,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Charlie. Dean and I, we have some- um, some news,” he said.

“Lemme guess, a demon god is eating your friends alive to get back at you for saving the universe for the hundredth time,” I laughed. When he didn’t answer, I stopped laughing. “Sam?” I asked again.

“It’s Y/N,” he said. I hadn’t heard that name in, what, half a decade? I didn’t like to think about her. I didn’t know why… I think it was because she was what fulfilled the “hunter’s prophecy” for me, so to speak. You find someone you truly love, who truly loves you back. They’re also a hunter, and the question is always in the air, somewhere, but you just pray you have enough love and faith to drown it out. When she died, the love and faith died with her, and the prophecy was fulfilled. “This life, it ends bloody.” Kind of like a shittier Indiana Jones.

“What about her?” I asked, swallowing my discomfort. I was currently sitting in a bush, spying an old house rumoured to be connected to the Roanoke colony. I had to leave my ol’ AMC in the boys’ garage when I left. I figured the yellow wasn’t exactly stake out material.

“She’s- Charlie, she’s alive,” he said. I dropped the phone, staring at it on the ground. It took a moment for his words to set in.  _ She’s alive, Charlie. She’s alive. _

“Charlie?” Sam’s voice asked. “Hello, you still there?” I picked up the phone. There were  tears running down my cheeks now.

“How?” I asked, but it got lost in the tears. Tears of both sadness and joy. Because it had been  _ so long.  _ I’d been without her for so long, and now she was finally back. She was here again. “How?” I asked again.

“We don’t know,” Sam said. “But we think you should come home.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, taking deep breaths. I just couldn’t stop crying. “I’m-um, I’m in Dare County, North Carolina now, so it’s going to take me a good few days.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sam said kindly. There was a respectful silence.

“Sam?” I asked, voice cracking.

“Yeah, Charlie?”

“How is she?” I asked.

“She’s unconscious right now. She was dehydrated when they found her at the side of a nearby highway,” he said. Gosh, that was terrible.

“Do you think she knows what we did?” I asked. More silence, but I knew Sam and probably Dean were pondering the question themselves.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. More silence.

“I’ll see you soon, Sam. Bye,” I said, hanging up the phone. I got out of the bush, walking down the gravel road. I had to get to Lebanon. I had to see her. I had to hold her. If she was here, I needed to be with her. It’d been too long, and I’d dreamed of this too many times to spare anymore time staying here.

Ancient colonial ghosts could wait. Y/N was coming home.

“So, how’d she take it?” Dean asked.

“Um… Well, good, I guess? I mean, Charlie’s never really had to deal with this whole resurrection thing, and it was over the phone, so…” I trailed off. Dean nodded, looking back at Y/N. “How are you, with all of this?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m-I’m fine,” Dean said, waving me off. I gave him a stern look. “Fine,” he said, sitting in a chair next to her hospital bed. “Honestly? I’m a little scared. What is she thinking up there? Does she think we brought her back? Is she mad? Is she scared?”

“You think she’s going to blame you for not bringing her back,” I thought aloud. Dean looked up at me. “Dean, honestly? She might. She asked you, her dying wish, was to come back. She wanted to be with us, probably as soon as possible. And now she  _ is  _ back–”

“But not because of us- me,” Dean finished my sentence.

“You know, I remember you after that phone call. You rushed out the door, got into the Impala, and hightailed it,” I laughed, revisiting the memory.

_ Dean’s face dropped, draining of it’s colour. “What do you mean, Y/N? Where are you?” he asked. He listened to Y/N on the phone. “You’re going to be fine, Y/N. Just tell me where you are,” Dean said. More listening. He was clenching his left fist now. “Yeah, Y/N?” he asked. _

_ Moments later, he pulled the phone away from his ear. “What is it? Is Y/N alright?” I asked, sitting up from the war room table. Dean walked away from me, up the stairs to the Bunker door. “Dean? Is everything alright? Where are you going?” I asked. _

_ “Y/N’s in trouble. I’m gonna go get her,” he said, before racing out the door. I stared after the door for a moment before getting my phone out and calling Y/N. It rang, and rang, and I hung up. I tried again. It kept ringing, and I hung up again. I called once last time. It rang for the full twenty five seconds before going to voicemail. “This is Y/N. Leave your name, number and nightmare, and I’ll get back to you,” her voice said. I hung up before the beep. It felt weirdly final. _

_ Dean didn’t get back for another two hours. He smelt like a brewery, and almost fell down the Bunker stairs. I help him up, helping him down. “Did you drive drunk?” I asked, grimacing at his stench. Dean didn’t say anything. He stumbled into a seat at the war room table. We didn’t talk about it that night, or the night a day later when we arrived to an abandoned house to find Y/N’s body, cold, set in the upper staircase landing. We didn’t talk about it after we told Charlie in person. We didn’t talk about it when Charlie cried over her girlfriend’s dead body. _

_ When it came to Y/N’s funeral, Dean was steadfast against a Hunter’s funeral. So we buried her in the most beautiful city of the place she called home, Elk City, Kansas. Charlie was more of a nomad than ever after Y/N’s death, wandering off to the farthest and most obscure corners of the country, hunting monsters. Dean had a triple B binge (beer, boobs and Bob Seger) and I… Well, I just pushed it down with a hunting work load. It didn’t mean Y/N’s voicemail message didn’t echo around in my head sometimes, or that I didn’t wonder what she said to Dean that he wouldn’t talk about. _

_ Until one day. It was the third anniversary of her death, and we were on a werewolf hunt. The usual dingy motel set up, Dean fast asleep and snoring in the other bed. I was staring up at the ceiling, voicemail bouncing around extra loud tonight. _

_ “What did she say to you?” I asked aloud. Dean startled awake, sitting up. He glared at me sleepily. _

_ “What, Sammy?” he asked. _

_ “The day Y/N died. That phone call. What did she say to you?” I asked, looking him in the eye. _

_ “It’s too early… Or late for this, Sam. Can we discuss it another time?” Dean asked, but it sounded a bit like a plea. _

_ “No, Dean. It’s been three years. Three years, and I still don’t know what she said last. Neither does Charlie, and that’s especially not fair to her. She was my friend, too, but more importantly, Charlie  _ loved _ her. That’s not something you find as a hunter, and so she at least deserves to know!” I said. _

_ “You wanna’ know? Really?” he asked. I nodded. “She said that she wanted to come back. Said she wanted us to bring her back somehow. That she loved Charlie, and I should “jump through cosmic hoops” or whatever. That’s what she said.” _

_ I sat there, thinking for a moment. “So let’s do it,” I finally said. _

_ “What do you mean, “let’s do it”? Sam, we’ve made deals before. And they always come with a price tag, and it’s always an ugly one,” Dean said. _

_ “So? Y/N deserves this, Dean. Charlie deserves this. We save the world every day, but what’s the point if deserving people like them don’t get to live in it,” I said. _

_ “Charlie’s still living,” Dean defended. _

_ “Yeah, avoiding us like the plague and hanging out in the deserted countryside who-knows-where, under the guise of hunting monsters. She’s running, Dean, from this. From Y/N’s death, from not knowing. They deserve this. And she asked you to, so let’s do it.” _

_ We didn’t end up doing it. I told Charlie the next time she was around the Bunker, and I could tell a part of her wanted to, was desperate to. But that part of her was reigned in by the classic line. “What’s dead should stay dead.” Except that wasn’t really true, was it? _

Three days later, Dean and I were back at the Bunker. The day we visited, we asked the nurse if we could stay with Y/N, “for her safety.” It was a no, and she sent us back to the office, or in this case, back to Lebanon. Charlie hadn’t gotten there yet, but Dean figured she might’ve had travel complications. That was not the case.

Dean’s phone starting ringing. “Hello?” He answered it. “Charlie?” he asked, looking at me. He pulled the phone away from his face, putting it on speaker.

“And company,” someone said. Y/N. I raised my eyebrows in shock.

“Is that really you, Y/N?” I asked.

“Indeed it is, Sammy-boy. I’m up and ticking again. Isn’t that exciting?” she asked enthusiastically.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s great, Y/N,” I said. Dean’s face was coloured with concern for what she could say next.

“So, how’d you guys do it?” she asked.

“Do what?” Dean asked.

“Bring me back. Did you make a deal, jump through those cosm–” Y/N was cut off.

“Y’know, I should really focus on the drive, guys,” Charlie said. “We’ll see you soon,” she said with an extra edge in her voice. Then she hung up.

Dean and I looked at each other. “What the hell do we do now?” he asked.

“We welcome her back home. And if she asks, which she inevitably will,” I said, “We tell the truth.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Potentially dissociating, sex is mentioned for a short bit, discussing contraception (condoms, etc.), a few swear words. I took some artistic liberties with this one.
> 
> This is a series from my Tumblr blog. I didn't edit it, spare a few typos.

I woke up to a face pressed into my back. It was warm, and I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Charlie.

She felt me shift slightly and smiled into my shoulder blade. “‘Morning, babe,” she said.

I turned around, wrapping her in my arms. “Good morning to you too,” I smiled. I leaned down and kissed her. When I pulled back, her nose was in a wrinkle. “What?” I asked.

“You have morning breath,” she said.

“Well, you do too,” I said defensively.

“Actually,” Charlie said, sitting up. She was in pyjamas, which is not what I remember her wearing last I saw her. Then again, she wasn’t wearing much of anything last I saw her. “I’ve been up since about seven, waiting for you.”

“Why?” I asked. It was the weekend, and we were on vacation in Maine. It was always nice in Maine. Aunt Bettie’s Bed and Breakfast, the homiest non-home I’d ever been in.

“Because I wanted to make that morning breath comment,” she said, breathing in my face. Her breath smelt like toothpaste. She ran off the bed and across the room. I sat up, throwing a pillow at her.

“Asshole! You set me up!” I laughed. I picked up two more pillows, getting out of bed and throwing one at her. I walked over to her, throwing the second one to the side as she pulled me into her arms for a kiss.

“Yes, Y/N, it will forever be known as the Great Toothpaste Betrayal.” We stared at each other for a moment.

“Et tu, Brute?” I asked, and we both broke down laughing. She hugged me, intertwining our legs and walking us back over and onto the bed. “You’re so weird,” I sighed.

“Mhm, and you love it.” She rested her head on my chest, listening to my heartbeat. She never used to do that before, but I figured it was a stable reminder for her. That I was still here, my heart still beating. “What do you think Aunt Bettie thinks about us having all this sex in her house?” she asked randomly, her face now level with mine.

“I think,” I said, kissing her quickly, “That as long as we pay enough money, the capitalist corporation parading as Aunt Bettie will be just fine with all the sex we’re having in their house. We’ll just make sure to put all linens in the laundry hamper to spare the underpaid worker time and… Other things,” I said, kissing her again.

“Very well put. Y'know, you’re really smart,” Charlie said.

“I know. Or else you wouldn’t be agreeing to marry me in six months. I wouldn’t have made it past the first date.”

“Alright, Mrs. L/N-Bradbury,” Charlie smiled. “I love you,” she said.

“I know.”

The china white wallpaper with pink and gold tea roses melted away, the granny-style quilt, the suitcases hidden in the corner. Charlie. It all melted away in a black void.

I sat up, looking around anxiously. “Hello?” I called out. I looked underneath me. I was lying on a black platform, but it seemed to have neither an end nor a beginning. “Charlie? Are you okay?”

I heard a distant sound. It was me. “Hello?” it echoed, but this was warbled and higher pitched. “Charlie? Are you okay?” It sounded like a million rubber balls being bounced to sound like me.

The void quickly disappeared, replaced with a panelled ceiling. “Ma'am? Ma'am?” someone asked. I turned to see a young girl holding a variety store plastic bag on it with a smiley face. “Here’s your things,” she smiled.

I smiled awkwardly back at her, taking the bag and looking around at where I was. It looked like a generic convenience store. I approached the door, opening it and stepping through, and that’s when everything fell into place. I knew what I was doing there now.

I got into the black SUV right in front of the store doors on the front passenger side. I looked to see my wife, Charlie, and our daughter, Celene, in the back seat. She was face palming.

“Alright, so,” I said, opening the bag and looking inside. “I got you condoms,” I said, holding them up. Celene was still face palming. “Hey, Celene. Look at them,” I said.

“But why, Mom? I’m not even planning on doing anything,” she said.

“And that’s where you get caught off guard, in the heat of the moment,” Charlie chimed in.

“Moooom,” Celene dragged out the word, “Stop helping Mom make her case.”

“And I also got you dental dams, in case anything happens there,” I continued, putting the condoms back in the bag and taking out the dental dams. Celene finally peaked through her fingers, and I saw an unnoticeable smile spread on Charlie’s lips.

“And, finally,” I said, putting the dental dams back in the bag.

“Oh, please tell me you didn’t get me lube or something,” Celene groaned.

“No, sweetie. I got you a necklace, because dealing with monsters is a bitch. And no, just because I said it doesn’t mean you can,” I said. I pulled out a silver chain with a tiny silver cross charm. “I know we’re not religious, but the symbol has some significance to me,” I said, looking at Charlie.

Celene took it, looking at the charm rest on her palm. “No, Mom. It’s really pretty. Thanks,” she said. I handed her the bag of contraception, and she put it on the seat next to her.

“It’s late, and cold. How about some hot chocolate on the way home?” Charlie asked, pulling out of the convenience store parking lot.

“I’m down. Kiddo?” I asked.

“Sure, sounds good.”

We stopped for hot chocolate, and Celene finished hers the fastest before falling asleep in the back seat.

“She looks so peaceful,” I said.

“When she’s not being a snarky teenager,” Charlie said, eyes still on the road.

“She got a little bit of that from me, guilty,” I said. “And, just being a teenager.”

“And she got her strong will from you, too,” Charlie said.

“Eh, no. I think she got that from you,” I said.

“Dude, you literally willed yourself back to life. That’s some strong will,” Charlie whispered.

“Oh, so that’s what happened?” I laughed quietly. “And two, I love how you said 'dude’. But I still disagree on where she got it from.”

Charlie was silent, thinking. “Well, maybe she got her strong will from  _ both of us.  _ But she’s definitely got your heart,” she said. I smiled a little into my paper cup.

The snowy road ahead turned black, and I turned to Charlie to see her face melting into black goo. It was disturbing. Celene was gone from the back seat, and soon so was the car. I was in the void again.

I stood up, pissed off. “Oh so what is this, greatest hits that never happened?!” I asked. I tried banging my fist on what looked like a wall, but my hand went straight through. I pulled it out, and it was fine.

“What the fuck?” I asked aloud. No weird echo this time. I turned around, and it was no longer the void. It was the woods, and the distant grass and landslide. I rushed forward, only to smack into something. I looked down, and there was only the cross at my feet. I looked back ahead, and I could still see the same view. I could walk down and get to the road and get to the bus station– Wait. No. I went to the truck stop first, and showered and washed my clothes.

I slapped the invisible barrier, getting angry. I wanted to go home. I kept slapping it over and over again, tears welling up in my eyes. “C'mon, I wanna’ go home. I wanna go home!” I screamed.

My scream echoed from the void, a warbling screech hurting my ears. I slid down to my knees, crying. “I wanna’ go home. I need to go home. Please,” I sobbed. I heard an echoed sighed. I looked up to see… Me.

“Come on, get up,” she said, kneeling down and offering me a hand. I took it, helping me to my feet.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A mix of things. Your subconscious, id, ego, superego. Left brain, right brain… We’re trying to make a collective decision, via you,” she explained.

“Then what am I?” I asked.

“The soul. The non-scientific nuclear battery that runs and directs the rest of us. Well, most of us, anyway,” she said.

“Don’t I get a say in whatever you’re deciding?” I asked.

“Not this time, honey. You have bias in this situation.”

“Which is…”

“Whether you should survive this. You waking up in that landslide, that was an accident. But your soul is just a little too strong, and a little too persistent,” she said.

“I don’t remember that,” I said, confused.

“You collectively wouldn’t, but trust me, it happened.”

“But, Sam and Dean have come back many times. Have they ever had to do this?” I asked.

“You don’t know,” she said. “And they wouldn’t remember. When this is all said and done, and assuming we decide you live, you won’t remember either.” She– I turned around and walked closer to the void.

“Well that’s not fair!” I said. She stopped, turning around.

“And why not?” she asked.

“Because I deserve to know. Anything that happens to me, I deserve to know,” I said.

“Y/N. This isn’t a democracy, or any type of government. A cosmic entity made a deal with another, and revived you. That’s great and all, and you have a chance of actually living. But that’s our decision. Period.”

She disappeared into the void again, and I was left alone. I was going to die. I could tell by her-  _ my _ demeanor, they were leaning more towards death than life. I looked down at my body. I was wearing leather jacket, jeans. One of Charlie’s shirts.

I lightly tapped the invisible force where the cross was. It was like… Glass. My mind flashed back to the semi truck.  _ “You wrap your arms in it,  and then…”  _ I heard Sam in my head. I took off my jacket, wrapping my arms in it. I took a deep breath, calming my nerves. I didn’t know what I was going to do once I did this. Well, I had one idea; run like hell.

“Let’s get this party started,” I mumbled. With that, I pushed my arms forward with as much force as I could muster. My jacket and my arms were now through… Whatever this was. I removed my arms from the jacket, looking at it with awe and smiling.

The joy was short lived when an inhuman screech sounded from the depths of the void. I emerged from the darkness again, this time very,  _ very _ angry. And there was something a little off.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she asked.

“Getting out of here,” I said. Then I turned back to the hole. It was relatively small, so this would take a minute. I dove through head first, seeing what was on the other side. It was the same woods, and it was raining. I tried wriggling through the hole without cutting myself in half. I felt something grip onto my leg. I turned onto my back, looking back into the hole. I was holding onto my leg, except there was something off. The thing that looked like me was very quickly starting to not look like me. “You’re not me,” I thought aloud. “Let me go,” I started kicking the entity in the chest.

“Come back here! You are not ready for life! You are not worthy!” it screamed. That made me angry. I was worthy. I was just as worthy as Sam, or Dean, or anyone else. Me being alive saved lives. Me being alive helped the world, made other deserving people happy. I didn’t care what cosmic loopholes I’d have to jump through, what multidimensional wavelengths of celestial intent I would have to kill.  _ I was going home. _

I kicked fake me in the chest the hardest I’d ever kicked anything. It seemed this whole escape plan was requiring maximum effort. It stumbled back, and I took the opportunity to quickly pull the rest of my body into the woods, grabbing my jacket. The entity started running towards the hole, and I didn’t know how to shut it. Thinking quickly, I pulled the cross out of the ground. It was like the void and the entity were swallowed into a vacuum. Everything disappeared, leaving the mud and the trees and the rain.

I heaved a full body sigh. I could feel the rain on my arms, the mud under my shoes. Everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a series that was uploaded from my Tumblr blog.

I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear. I could hear everything. It was all just a little bit… Slower than it probably should’ve been. Like someone had put the world’s audio on slow motion.

“When do you think she’ll wake up,” sounded more like the turtle than the hare. Everything was just taking a really long time. But I recognized that voice. Female… Close friend? No. My brain, no matter how jumbled, could tell this person wasn’t just a friend.

 _Charlie_. It clicked. I felt this overwhelming urge of… Something. A mix of emotions. Sadness, for leaving her. Joy, for being back. Anger, that I couldn’t see her, and because she sounded like that one scene in The Matrix. I wanted to here bubbly, wise cracking Charlie. I wanted her to ask me an obscure question, and make a Star Wars reference. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to hold her, and stay with her forever. But all I got right then was slo-mo Charlie.

Beyond the chatter, I could here random high notes. I tried remembering what happened before… The void, to pinpoint the potential places I could be.

_Darkness. Walking. Water. Mud. More water, but it’s different this time. Plastic._

_“Kansas, sweetheart. Where else?”–_

_“I’d like to buy a bus ticket?”_

_“Where to?”–_

_“You’ll have to find another way to Lebanon, ma’am. Sorry.”–_

Lebanon, Kansas. Or near there, at least.

I kept zoning in and out, but there was nothing else to listen to. The room was silent for a long while, and then I zoned out again.

When I could here something again, it was sniffling. It sounded normal, though, so that was a plus.

“Brody,” someone cried softly. “Why’d you leave me? Why’d you have to go on that goddamn hunt, huh? I told you, I told you it was risky. I-I should’ve tried harder to stop you,” someone said, but it sounded watery. Charlie again.

That wasn’t true. If she had been more persistent, we would’ve just gotten into an argument. I would have gone anyway, and died on bad terms with her. That would have been worse.

“I don’t know, Brody. I don’t know. Maybe this was supposed to happen, teach us all a lesson. But I hope class is over, because I need you to wake up. I need you to wake up now, and then we can go home. Wake up, Brody,” Charlie said. “Come home.”

I was trying, god I was trying. Just when I could feel my physical body again, just a little bit, I slipped back into the fuzziness.

* * *

 

Brody was here. She was alive, somehow. Maybe she knew, maybe she didn’t. I wasn’t too concerned with it at the time. I just needed her to wake up. I could tell she was still there, because her eyes were still moving under her eyelids. So she was trying. I just didn’t know how to help her, coax her along.

Sam and Dean were probably wondering where I was. I hadn’t let them know I was in Kansas, let alone the hospital. They would try to keep me away from her until she was awake, “for emotional care’s sake” or some other B.S.. But no. I needed to see her. I needed to hold her hand, and talk to her. It’d been so long, too long. And even if she was unconscious, it still helped. I just hoped it was helping her.

I had snuck into the hospital after hacking their medical records at a cyber cafe in Kentucky. I stole scrubs and a random name tag from the overnight room. I blended in almost perfectly, minus the emotional hand holding of a random patient. But that’s what locks and shutters were for.

At one point, after talking to her for a little while, she squeezed my hand lightly. But it didn’t last, as her body went limp again.

Eventually it started getting late, and I knew someone would be making their rounds eventually. I was hesitant to let her hand go, but I did, getting up from the uncomfortable plastic chair. I hadn’t noticed when my butt went numb, but it definitely was now.

I stood over her, memorizing her face. I’d never forgotten it, and it looked mostly the same, minus the huge gash and stitches. I hesitated before leaning over and kissing her forehead. I walked to the door, unlocking it and slipping off the floor before anyone noticed me.

It was tempting to go back to the bunker. See the boys, talk about this… Magical, wonderful yet terrifying thing that had happened to us. We should’ve probably made a game plan for what to tell Brody when she woke up and got back. But I couldn’t bring myself to. If I was going back there, it needed to be with her. I thought myself being a little dramatic, sure, but that’s what my life was. And if I was going home, I wanted it to be a sort of final coming home. I wanted to experience visiting the bunker again _with_ her.

Maybe that was selfish. She should experience things on her own after this horrible event, she should get something for herself. Or maybe it was supportive. Maybe it would be too much and she’d need someone who could slightly empathize, at least with seeing the bunker again if not anything else.

At that point, I didn’t really care, so it didn’t really matter. I’d lost too much to care. We had lost too much for me to care. It just was.

I just hoped that wasn’t all it would ever be.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a series from my Tumblr blog. Warnings for this chapter: sleep paralysis, anxiety, uncertainty, hospital environment, nudity, old dudes being creeps, drugging, swearing.

I felt paralyzed. I opened my eyes, but everything was dark and blurry. I couldn’t move. It felt like I was choking.

I was dead. That was the only explanation my panicked brain could come up with. I didn’t want to believe it, but it could be true. I tried calling out for someone, anyone. But nothing. I was stuck.

Moments later, everything started working. I shot up in… Bed? This felt off. There was something inside me screaming that there was something missing, that this was similar to something else I’d experienced. I couldn’t recall, though.

I’d been… Somewhere for the past while. I just remembered black, and trying to remember it made me feel misplaced upset. What mattered was that I was here, wherever here was. It looked like… A hospital.

I tried remembering. Upsetting blackness, and then before that, a dusty road. No, highway. And a bus station. Being very, very thirsty. Black smoke from a bus. One thing I did remember was that I was in Kansas. I moved my legs off the bed slowly. I looked down at my arms, seeing a tube sticking out of my arm and a clip on my finger. I yanked out the tube, pain sparking in my wrist. I left the clip on for now, knowing even through the haziness that it would cause a commotion. I didn’t remember why, but I knew if I wanted to escape, I didn’t want to draw any attention.

Looking around the room, I spotted a colourful map on the wall. I stood up, and I almost fell. I steadied myself with the edge of the bed, peering at the map. There was bird’s eye view, then by floor. The hospital was big, and this gave me no idea as to where I was.

I couldn’t move too far away from the bed with the clip on, so I’d have to take it off. I sighed, yanking it off and waiting to see what would happen. The moving lines on the elevated monitor stopped moving, the numbers dropping to zero. That’s what reminded me. Now the nurses thought I was flat lining. Great.

I opened the door a crack, seeing a bright hallway. Other rooms, some doors open, some closed. No one was in the hallway, so I stepped out. I walked quickly down the hallway, still seeing no one. I spotted a sign. The ICU was the way I’d just came. Well, that answered my first question. Now, how did I get out of here?

The sign said that reception was the same way as the gynecology ward and the elevator. That just meant I needed to blend in and dodge staff. Should’ve been easy enough, right? Wrong. Just as I stepped into the other hallway, two nurses came around the corner, running. I jumped back, hiding inside the nearest open hospital room. I watched the nurses rush by, probably to check on me. I stepped out again, taking my opportunity to quickly walk down the hallway. I turned again, entering the gynecology ward. It was dark, with only a few lights on in a few rooms.

I heard phones ringing nearby, and that’s when I spotted the nurse’s station. It was enclosed with large class windows. The overhead P.A. turned on. “Code Yellow in the ICU, repeat, Code Yellow in the ICU.” Well, looks like they’d found me out. Now I had to make sure they didn’t actually find me. The nurses in the station all turned to face the window in my direction, and I ducked behind a potted plant.

“This should feel so much more James Bond than it does,” I muttered to myself. I peeked from behind a leaf, and they had turned around again. I crawled on the floor until I reached the station. I hid under the counter. There were two hallways facing me, so if anyone walked down them, I’d be caught. But, the nurses in the station couldn’t see me. The left hallway led to physiotherapy, the other the elevator.

I would need to blend once I got there,and outpatients didn’t generally wear hospital gowns. But from what I recalled, if a patient is unconscious upon arrival, the strip you of your clothes. Which means they cut them up to see if I had any other injuries, and they were most likely rags in the trash outside. So, plan B. Which I would have to figure out later.

I crawled to the other side of the door to the nurses station, standing up. The door opened suddenly, but I was hidden by it. A nurse in pink scrubs continued walking in the opposite direction, leaving the door open. I didn’t stick around to realize how lucky I was, making my way down the other hallway. I came to the elevator, pressing the button and waiting. The doors opened smoothly, revealing no one. I stepped inside, pressing the ground floor. The doors closed, and I looked up. In the corner was a security camera.

“Shit,” I whispered. Were they able to track where this thing stopped? I hoped not. I pressed a bunch of other buttons. When the doors opened at our first stop, floor five, there were three security guards waiting for me.

“Sorry, no solicitors!” I said as I pressed the close button. One of them tried to stick their hand in the elevator, but ultimately decided against it. When we stopped on the third floor, no one was there yet. I stepped out, not waiting to see who would. I ran down the hallway, spotting beds. This must’ve been the general ward. I spotted an empty bed with clothed folded on the blanket. The other patients seemed to be either out of it or asleep, and there weren’t any nurses near this group of beds. Just as I got next to the bed, a nurse came into view, eyes zeroing in on me.

“Excuse me, what are you doing out of bed?” she asked. I swallowed audibly, thinking of an excuse. I spotted a glass of water on another patient’s tray.

“I was wondering if I could get some water,” I said. She eyed me for another moment, before turning around and heading down the hallway. I immediately started stripping of my hospital gown. I was past the point of caring that I was naked in front of strangers as I changed into sweatpants, a baggy sweater and a pair of ancient sneakers from under the bed.. Boring, generic and comfortable. Excellent.

A low whistle came from across the room, and I looked to see an old guy staring at me. “Nice buns you got there, sweetie,” he said.

I made a disgusted face, approaching him. I looked at his IV, finding the tiny dial. “You think you’re funny?” I asked, still looking at the IV.

“Very funny, darlin’,” he said.

“Mhm, well then this, this’ll be hilarious,” I said, increasing his morphine. Not enough to kill him, but enough to mess him up for a little while. Call me a horrible person, I call it consequence. “Have a funny fuckin’ day,” I said, walking away.

I hid in a dark corner as the nurse with a glass of water passed by, making my way out of general ward and back to more elevators.

In the elevator, I pressed the ground floor button. When the doors opened again, no one paid me any attention. I walked past reception and right out of the hospital, and no one even questioned it.

Outside it was cool and dark. It must’ve been night. I sighed, looking up at the stars. All this darkness made me feel a mild uneasiness, but it felt so good to be out of that stuffy hospital. I smiled, opening my arms and letting the world consume me for a moment. I was back on my journey home.

I heard a car door close, but didn’t pay it any attention. Not until I heard my name. “Y/N?”

There she was. Charlie, in a suit. Staring at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a series from my Tumblr blog. Warnings for this chapter: yelling, a bit of a breakdown, sex mention, blood mention, nudity, swearing, death mention.

I sat in the car next to Charlie, staring at the dashboard. Charlie had asked me a question. “How are you doing?”

And honestly, I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know how I was doing. I had to take a moment, let everything settle. I had died. That sentence was weird to think. When I was a child, I never thought about dying. Death was a foreign concept.

Now I had died. I had died, and come back. I had walked to a truck stop, broken a truck’s window. I stole a wallet, showered at said truck stop. I used that stolen money to take a bus halfway across the state. I trekked down a highway, before passing out and… I escaped a hospital. Now I was here. All in the time span of about a week, according to Charlie.

“Mairin?” Charlie asked gently. I turned to her, and her face changed. Concern, sadness.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re crying,” she said.

I put my hand up to my face, and it came away wet. Indeed I was. I sniffled, wiping the tears away. There was this hole in my head somewhere, as well as the overwhelming information and realizations heaving down on me.

“I’m just tired,” I said.

“You’ve been in a coma for four days,” she said.

“Well I’m still fucking tired!” I snapped. Charlie blinked, surprised. It took me a moment to realize that I’d scared her. It wasn’t just me in this situation, it was weird and affecting all of us. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s fine… Are you alright?” she asked.

“Just tired,” I mumbled. Charlie nodded, turning to the wheel. She buckled her seat belt, but left me alone about mine. She pulled the car into drive, backing out of the spot in the hospital parking lot. I stared out the car window, my head resting on my arm. My satisfactory mood of escaping, of finally being free was replaced with a dull fuzziness.

As we drove, I tried thinking to before. Before I woke up in that landslide, before I stepped foot into that old house that night on the djinn hunt. Memories of fun and good sex. Memories of the aftermath of hunts gone wrong. Memories of making our love our own were all tainted with this horrible aftertaste that took the form of an ugly thought. “And then I died.”

We went on our seventh date. And then I died.

We did it in a Comic Con bathroom, giggling the entire time. And then I died.

We said, “I love you,” not out loud, but in a million little ways. And then I died.

Suddenly the car stopped. It pulled me out of the fuzziness and back to reality. I turned to the window, seeing a bright neon sign. ‘The Blackbird Motel’. I turned to look at Charlie. “What’re we doing here?” I asked.

“You said you’re tired. If we go back to the bunker, it’s gonna’ be all smiles and reunions and questions. No time for being tired. So, we’ll rest up here, and then head there in the morning,” she said.

“Are Sam and Dean okay with that?” I asked.

“At this point, you shouldn’t be worrying about what the boys think. They’ll be happy to see you, period,” Charlie said. I nodded slightly, getting out of the car. I shut the door as Charlie got out, opening the trunk. She fished out a duffel bag before slamming the trunk, and we walked into the hotel.

The desk person was there, smiling, and helped us get a room for the night. Number thirteen, down the hall to the right. When I opened up the door, it was like I’d just found the lost city of Atlantis. It looked so normal, it looked like the regular environment Before Mairin would be in. I rushed in, making a beeline for the large bed. I didn’t even check for bed bugs or weird stains, hopping right on.

“Someone’s eager,” Charlie said, smiling. I cuddled an uncomfortable pillow. “Well, it’s been a long day for both of us,” she said, setting her bag down on the nearby table. “I’m going to go get cleaned up, alright?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said quietly. When she closed the bathroom door, I got under the covers of the bed. That’s when I realized there was only one. I hadn’t asked her about the… Situation, when it came to us. I was too tired to have that conversation right now, so I thought falling asleep on the farthest corner of the bed would do for now. I just needed sleep.

I didn’t fall asleep. I opened my eyes, and there was the motel room wall, with it’s horrible cream coloured glory. I sat up, sighing. My brain just couldn’t give me a break, could it? I looked to the bathroom door. The light was off, and the door was ajar. Was Charlie still in there?

I stood up, walking to the door. I pushed it open. There she was, dead. Blood was seeping through her shirt, her head laid back. There was blood running down the side of the tub. There was a shard of glass lying on the floor, covered in blood. I looked to the mirror, spotting where the missing shard came from. Then, an eyeball appeared. Then a hand gripped the side of the hole, breaking away more glass until I could see their whole face. Well, my whole face.

“See what you’ve done?” I asked. “See what you always do?” The other me started crawling through the mirror, bloody and bruised. It looked like every hunting wound I’d ever had just opened up on her body. I was getting closer and closer, until–

I shot up in bed, sweating and panting. I looked around. It was the same motel room, same ugly wallpaper. I turned to the bathroom. The light was on, door ajar. I walked slowly, opening the door with my eyes closed, afraid of what I’d see.

“Oh,” I heard someone say. I opened my eyes to see Charlie, in the bath, in water. Not dead, covered in her own blood. I looked at the mirror, and all I could see was myself. Real me, not any freaky glass-breaking me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Just… Couldn’t sleep,” I said, turning back around.

“No, wait,” Charlie said. I turned back to her. “It’s fine.” I stood there awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to do. “Do you want to get in?” she asked. That’s when I became highly aware that Charlie was also very naked in the bathtub in water.

I could feel my cheeks burning, and looked down. “Um, sure,” I said. I stepped into the bathroom, turning away from her. I looked in the mirror again, taking off the sweater, then the sweatpants and shoes. I looked at myself for a moment. Stitches on my forehead, bags under my eyes. There was dried blood on my arm from removing that IV. I turned back around to see Charlie staring at me. I got closer to the tub, and Charlie moved her legs in the bath for me to step in.

The water was warm. I sat down slowly, all while holding eye contact with Charlie. When I sat down fully, I pulled my knees up to my chest. I was holding everything in at that moment. It was like the kitchen sink at my old family home. There was a certain point between the two general modes of using the tap, between on and off. You would have the tap off, but if you moved it just enough, a little drop of water would come out. If I let a drop out in this situation, though, I thought it would all come out.

I didn’t want that. After all, this was just a bath.

Charlie opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off.

“I don’t want to talk about me,” I said. “I don’t, because I don’t even really know… What happened. Everything just feels… Wrong. I can’t sleep. I had a nightmare, and I don’t want to talk about that either. Can we just… Talk about you or something? Be a normal couple?”

Charlie took a moment, before smiling softly. “Sure.”

“Alright,” I said. “How have you been?” I asked.

“Sad,” she said. “You don’t want to talk about yourself, which is fine, but we’re not going to act like you didn’t die. And I’m not going to pretend like it hasn’t affected the last five years of my life.”

“It’s been five years?” I asked. Charlie nodded.

“I’ve travelled the country. New York, Wisconsin, Washington, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Maine,” she said. “I was in North Carolina when Sam and Dean called me about you.”

“How are the boys?” I asked. Charlie frowned. She took my arm gently, grabbing the shitty motel soap bar and dipping it into the water, before lathering my arm with it. The suds turned red from the blood, but she didn’t pay it any attention.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t been talking to them, really, other than the occasional letter without a return address once or twice a year,” Charlie said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because… I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, they were constant reminders. Of you, of what we had,” Charlie explained. She dipped my arm in the water. Flakes of blood fell to the bottom.

“You guys were supposed to stay together,” I said. “When someone dies, you grieve together, Charlie. You don’t just run around the map, pushing down your problems!” I said.

“Yeah, well when the person you love with everything you have dies, you can be the poster child for healthy coping!” she yelled. I yanked my arm away. She sighed, sitting back against the edge of the tub.

“Sorry,” I said. There was a moment of silence. “Did you find anyone?” I asked quietly.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Like… Did you find _anyone else_?” I emphasized. Charlie laughed, shaking her head.

“No,” she said. “No, I didn’t. And for a long time I wished I had, that I’d moved on. I thought you’d stolen my heart and taken it with you to the grave. But now… You’re back. And I… I don’t know how to feel. Because I’m not the same anymore, Mairin. I’ve grown up, and hardened. And I’m not sure, that you’re going to like who I’ve become.”

I pulled her by her legs until she was sitting on my thighs. I held her shoulders. “Charlie Bradbury. You are not the only person in this bathtub who has changed, first of all. And now that you say it, I am also afraid that you aren’t going to like who I have become. But… If Dean listened to me for once, you already how I feel,” I said. “I love you. And that will never change. If the world ends, if I die. It doesn’t change. I love you, Charlie.”

I hugged her, holding her tightly. Here I felt safe. In her arms, I couldn’t get to me. My mind couldn’t convince me she was dead if she was right here, living and breathing in my arms.

* * *

 

“I love you. And that will never change. If the world ends, if I die. It doesn’t change. I love you, Charlie,” Mairin said. Then she hugged me. And by God, I wanted to hug her back. But with the knowledge of what we did, or rather, didn’t do, it just didn’t feel right. Mairin’s love was misplaced. It didn’t belong with me. It wouldn’t after she knew.

Because how can you love the person who refused to bring you back?


	9. Chapter 9

I got in her car the next morning, my head having about a million active debates on the smallest of things. I was obviously reading into things too much, like how we’d slept in the same bed last night, on opposite sides of the bed, facing away from each other.

_ Maybe she  _ did _ have someone else _ , I thought. 

Which was rebutted by,  _ No dumb ass. It’s called respecting boundaries. It’s probably not a common thing to want to get it on after you come back to life, and she knows that. _

“You ready?” Charlie asked, turning to me in the passenger’s seat.

“I think so, yeah. I mean, this entire time, it’s been this… This fight, sort of, tooth and nail to get here. To get home. And now, I’m going home, and I can just relax.” Charlie nodded her head, pulling the car out of the motel parking lot.

We started driving, and I watched everything pass out the window. There wasn’t much of anything, actually. Mostly grass and corn fields, with the occasional herd of cows and a farm in the distance. That was Kansas. Boring farmland for the most part, for everyone else. Home base for monster hunters, for me.

We stopped at a Gas N’ Sip, and I went inside to buy myself something to eat. I’d eaten once since I’d been back, and that was a problem. I grabbed a frosted fruit pie and some shitty coffee. I looked out the windows to see Charlie filling the car with gas. I smiled to myself. It was something unimportant, mundane. Not sexy, or adorable or a big love confession or anything. I was just really in love with her, y’know?

I paid for my pie and coffee, and walked out to Charlie. “Hey. Almost filled up?” I asked.

“Yep. I forgot to after I got into Wichita, sorry,” she explained.

“It’s fine. I got myself breakfast,” I said, holding up the coffee and pie. “Want some?” I asked.

“I’m not the one who’s been unconscious and hospitalized for the past few days,” she said. I smiled again, shaking my head as I got in the car. Pretty soon, I heard the gas tank door shut and Charlie walked around the car before getting back in the driver’s seat. She pulled out her phone, scrolling through it.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Just going to quickly call Dean, let him know we’re on the way,” she said, holding her phone up to her ear.

“Let me say hi,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee.

“It’s fine, I’m just–” I took the phone from her hand, putting it on speaker. The call connected.

“Hello?” Dean’s voice came through the phone. “Charlie?”

“And company,” I said.

“Is that really you, Mairin?” It was Sam.

“Indeed it is, Sammy-boy. I’m up and ticking again. Isn’t that exciting?” I asked. There was this sudden rush. Hearing the boys again made me happy.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s great, Mairin,” Sam said, a little awkwardly.

“So, how’d you guys do it?” I asked.

“Do what?” Dean asked.

“Bring me back. Did you make a deal, jump through those cosm–” 

“Y’know, I should really focus on the drive, guys,” Charlie said. “We’ll see you soon.” She took her phone from my hands, hanging it up. Then she dropped it in the centre console.

“What was that?” I asked.

“What was what?” she asked, eyes on the road.

“The abrupt end to our conversation. Barely got to say hi,” I said, squinting at her. Something felt a bit off.

“I just need to focus on driving, okay? Everything’s happening all at once and it’s… It’s a lot, okay?” Charlie said, glancing at me. I frowned. I needed to keep in mind that it wasn’t just me going through this.

“Yeah, um. Sorry,” I said quietly. She sighed, a small smile on her lips.

“It’s fine. Let’s just… Listen to music, alright?” Charlie asked. She turned on the stereo. Piano notes drifted into the car. “She’s a Rainbow” by the Rolling Stones. I looked back out the window. Something felt just a little off with Charlie, and with that phone call. Maybe it was just me being paranoid. There wasn’t anything those three would be keeping from me.

The further we drove, the foggier the view outside got, and the more my brain was coming up with ridiculous theories.

When we finally got to the bunker, Charlie parked the car and grabbed her bag. We walked down the concrete path, and then there we were. I was staring at the metal door for a little while.

“Y/N,” Charlie said, catching my attention. I turned to her. “You okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Just… It’s been a while.” I took a deep breath, walking towards the door. The door opened with a loud clank, and I stepped inside. It was all so big, and brighter than I remember it. I made my way down the stairs, followed by Charlie. When I got to the bottom, none other than Sam and Dean were waiting for me. I felt myself tear up.

I basically tackled Dean, squeezing him tightly. He smelt like pizza grease. I pulled back, looking at him. I smiled, crying a little bit. “Hey, Dean,” I said.

He smiled, tearing up a little bit. “So what, I’m just chop liver?” Sam asked beside us. My laugh was a little watery, and I made my way over to him, squishing him into a hug. “I regret what I said,” he wheezed. I smiled into his shirt.

I let go of Sam, looking around at all of them. Sam and Dean hugged Charlie, before they all turned back to me. There was a mild sense of awkwardness between those three. “So, what have you two been up to?” I asked.

“A lot,” Sam said, grimacing a little. I nodded, not asking about it further. Clearly some stuff had gone down. Last I’d remembered, the boys were talking about shutting the gates of hell, and I wasn’t too sure they’d succeeded on that prospect.

“Well, let’s sit down. I’m exhausted,” I said, changing the subject.

“Sure. Pizza?” Dean asked.

“Sounds great,” I said, looking to the other two. Sam and Charlie nodded.

A little while later, we were eating around the War Room table. The door swung open, and we all turned to see who it was. Castiel entered the door, walking quickly down the stairs.

“Sorry I’m late. I came as soon as Dean called,” he said quickly. He noticed me, and gave me a confused look. “Y/N?” he asked.

“Hey Cas,” I said. “How’s my favourite strangel?” I asked, laughing at my own joke. When the others didn’t laugh, I looked at them. They all looked like someone was about to press the button that controlled all the world’s nukes.

Cas looked to Dean, and Dean seemed to give him a look. Castiel looked back at me. “It’s good to see you again, Y/N,” he said. He sat across from me at the table, and Dean eventually returned to debating with Charlie about Supertramp’s best album.

Something felt off.  _ Really  _ off. This wasn’t something I could just brush off anymore. A pit of anxiety was forming in my stomach as I thought about it.

_ Charlie was weird about the phone call. No one has even brought up my revival, really, skating around it for pizza. Cas’ confusion as to my being here, because he would have been in on bringing me back, right? They’d have at least told him about it. The look they shared read of, “Shut up, Cas.” Shut up about what? They wouldn’t– No, Y/N. You’re being ridiculous. They wouldn’t-  _ Dean  _ wouldn’t do that to you… Right? _

“Earth to Y/N… Hey, kiddo, you alright?” It was Dean, looking at me from across the table. I looked up. “You feeling okay, Y/N?” Dean asked, laughing awkwardly.

“Dean,” Sam said quietly, reading my face.

“Y/N?” Charlie asked.

I took a beat, trying to get myself together. I didn’t want to lash out, because I could’ve been wrong. But I needed to know.

“Did you really bring me back?”


	10. Chapter 10

Dean’s face dropped. Sam looked away guiltily, and Charlie’s eyes were trained on me. Castiel seemed to just be grasping the situation.

“It’s a simple question, Dean. Did you, or did you not bring me back to life?” I asked again. The longer he took to answer it, the more I could feel my blood boiling.

“No,” he finally said. I don’t know why that still felt like a punch to the stomach if I was expecting it. I guess I just never expected him to do that. Any of them, really. Sam and Charlie, too. God, Charlie. She knew this whole time.

“Did you ever plan to?” I asked. I looked at all of them.

“No,” Sam said, looking at me.

I nodded my head. “So you all went on this righteous mission to save me out of guilt? You didn’t give me life, but you were going to take credit for it anyway?” I asked.

“No.” Charlie stood up. “We couldn’t give you life, so we were going to give you your family. Us,” she said.

“I asked you to bring me back!” I yelled. “I asked you,” I pointed a finger at Dean. “My dying wish. That was the  _ only thing _ that I wanted.”

“You know that’s a pretty tall order, Y/N,” Dean said.

“And I should have gotten it! I’ve done  _ everything _ for you and Sam. I gave up my normal life, I’ve sacrificed friends, family. I’ve loved you, and trusted you. And I asked you for one thing, and it may be a big thing, but I should’ve gotten it.”

“It’s a complicated situation. It’s not like I didn’t want to,” Dean said.

“That’s bullshit,” Sam said to Dean. “I asked you, I  _ told _ you to do it.”

“And we asked Charlie, the rightful person to make that decision, and she said no!” Dean yelled.

“What?” I asked, looking to Charlie.

“I thought it was best for you to be at peace, Y/N. The world was in a bad place–”

“The world is  _ always _ in a bad place. You were here, and I like living!” I yelled. “I love you, Charlie. I love you. That’s why I wanted to come back. Not because my soul might’ve gone to Heaven or Hell, or because I wanted to keep fighting the good fight. Because I love you.”

I looked back at Dean. “But love doesn’t mean ownership, or authority.  _ I  _ am the one who makes decisions about myself, and I am the  _ only  _ person who does. And I asked you to bring me back.”

“Look Y/N, I’m sorry–”

“I don’t want your bullshit apologies, Dean. I don’t want any of it. I don’t have time,” I said, walking away from the table. I headed towards the stairs to the bunker door. “You know, you preach something about us all being a family,” I said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.

“But you don’t care. If you saw me as that, you wouldn’t have even questioned it. You wouldn’t have needed Sam or Charlie’s approval. You wouldn’t care about their disapproval. You’d do anything for your brother. You  _ have.  _ But me, or anyone else? Jo? Ellen? Bobby? Boohoo, but fuck ‘em, right?” I looked to Sam and Charlie. “We’re not family. Not anymore.”

I stalked up the stairs, not bothering to take a final glance back as the heavy door closed behind me. In the small hallway between that door and the outer door, I stopped.

A moment to quickly think about everything, hurl myself into a hill of emotions. I was angry, I was upset. I had just gotten back on semi-stable footing, and now it was gone again.

I had to figure out what happened. If the Winchesters hadn’t brought me back, I needed to know what did. But first I had to get out of here.

“Dr. Robert? Hi,” I said on the phone. I was sitting in the only Biggerson’s in Lebanon. “Yeah. I’m a… Friend of Dean Winchester’s. I need your help.” He told me to meet him at his office, and one car jack and a couple hours’ drive later, I arrived in front of a Chinese grocery store.

There was a man inside, butchering some meat behind a display counter.

“I’m looking for a Dr. Robert,” I said.

“Go back. All the way back,” the man said, pointing with his meat cleaver. I nodded, smiling awkwardly. There was a white door, which led to a dirty looking staircase. I closed the door behind me, not touching the railing as I climbed the stairs.

The door at the top with the paint chipped opened, and a short old man with a white beard and glasses on the edge of his nose came out. “Friend of Dean’s?” he asked. I wanted to instinctively cringe at that, but I smiled instead.

“That’s me. Y/N L/N, nice to meet you,” I said.

Dr. Robert smiled as well, shaking my hand. “Good to hear from someone in close with those two again. It’s been too long,” he said. I nodded in agreement. 

Dr. Robert led me through the beat up door where a woman, who looked nothing short of a 2008 goth magazine cover girl, was waiting. There were windows with the blinds shut, an examination table and regular office things. There was a bucket of plastic vials and a short filing cabinet.

“Y/N, this is my assistant, Eva,” Dr. Robert said, gesturing to her. She smirked at me, and I nodded.

“So, do you need some sort of payment or something?” I asked.

“For a friend of Dean’s? We’ll call it a one time favor,” he said. I sat down on the exam table, and the girl rolled up my sleeve. “You’ll be gone for three minutes, no more, no less.” Eva seemed to give him a playful look of doubt, but he ignored it.

He held up a syringe with clear fluid. “You got anyone I might need to send letters to?”

I didn’t have any letters because I didn’t really think of it. That this might go wrong, and that I might be stuck… Wherever again. But I trusted Dr. Robert on his 75% success rate, for some reason. And thinking about it, there wasn’t anyone I wanted to send letters to.

“Nope,” I said. Dr. Robert gave me a questioning look, but carried on.

Dr. Robert stuck me with the needle, pushing on the plunger. My body tensed for a moment, before relaxing. Dr. Robert and Eva’s faces above me got blurrier and blurrier, until it was nothing but black.

When I seemed to open my eyes again, I was laying in dirt. This felt familiar. Looking up, I remembered it as the Elk City landslide. Why was I here? I sat up, and saw something off. The woods were dark, but you could still see the outline of trees and the sky. Looking ahead of me looked like glass, and behind it was complete blackness. All consuming, terrifying void-like black.

I stood up, approaching it. There was a part in the glass that looked different. It was a rather large area, and it looked like a clear scab. Like the glass had grown over to heal itself.

There was a light tapping noise at the other end of the glass. It was pins and needles. Paying more attention, I noticed there was a figure sitting there, staring at me. They looked like me, but off. The face was a little too long, a little too pale. The eyes were a little too uncanny valley. The fingers looked more like sewing needles.

They smiled. “Was waiting for you to come back,” it said in a low, warbly voice.

“Who- what are you?” I asked. “What do you mean come back?”

“You’re such a petulant excuse of a being. You are given the gift of life, of  _ returning life,  _ and you throw it away,” they said. “I thought you were strong. Worthy, even, if you could beat me. But no. You’re just a greedy, egotistical sack of meat.”

“If you’re talking about the Winchesters and Charlie, that isn’t fair. I have a right to be angry.”

“You don’t have a right to  _ anything _ . The universe isn’t a democracy. The powers around you, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory; me, and things like me. We don’t care what is best for you. When it comes to life and death, we get all the votes.”

“You’re point?” I asked.

“My  _ point,  _ is that every single slobbering little parasite on that planet of yours is winning the lottery every second longer they breathe. You won the ultimate jackpot by getting to do it twice. But then you threw it all away with your  _ feelings,  _ your love, your desperate need for answers.”

“I want to know who brought me back. I need to know,” I said.

The thing in the void shook it’s head. “If you so desperately need to know… It was you.”

That shocked me. How can someone bring themselves back to life? You need infiltration from something that can cross the spiritual plane or pull cosmic strings.

“You were dead, so you’d crossed into… Well, here. But it counts. ‘Cosmic strings’? Not exactly. You’re very powerful, your soul. And your will to live, for some reason,” the entity said. I looked at them, confused.

They chuckled. “I’ve been inside your head, Y/N L/N. Felt all those sappy emotions, been to the _ extra _ gooey parts of your brain. I know what you despise, who you love. The only thing I can’t figure out is how that all equates to your soul’s strength,“ they said. "But considering your three minutes were up thirty seconds ago, I guess I’ll have all the time in the world to poke and prod to figure it out.”

The figure was standing now, face to face with me, inches from the glass. It’s sharp hand broke through the glass, grabbing me. It’s needle-like fingers dug into my stomach, reaching for something else. Pain shot through all of me on what felt like a molecular level.

 


	11. Chapter 11

The pain was slicing at my spine, pulsing painfully in my skull. I felt like I was suffocating, my lungs burning. Tears streamed down my face as the entity grinned widely.

“You waste your opportunity at life for answers. You humans always need to know everything, always need direction. Without it, you feel useless. And do you know why?” they asked. “Because unless you’re following orders, or destroying things, or fiddling with things that aren’t your business, you  _ are  _ useless. Every single one of you. Worse than those mindless angels.”

It hurt to scream or cry, even think, but I did. The entity had it wrong. Humans could be destructive, yes. But we created things too. Great works of art, many different understandings of life, literal life. We created emotions. We created love. _ I  _ had created love. I had created a family. One person I loved especially, who loved me too.

She had created pain for me. My whole family had. I wasn’t going to let that go, no. I still had to process that. In that moment, though, I forgave them. Not because I had to, or it was convenient. Because I wanted to. I wanted to one day be able to have and create that love with them again, and to do that I had to forgive them.

With what felt like the last of any energy or hope in me, I spoke. “No.”

The grin on their face faltered a moment, like they were expecting something. When nothing happened, the grin grew wider. So wide, the sides of their face started cracking. 

Pieces broke away, falling down and being swallowed by the void. The cracks grew, traveling down their neck, shoulders, arms. All the way down to the hand reaching inside me. The arm cracked and crumbled away. I  stumbled back, falling into the mud, looking at the entity.

They were looking at themselves as they slowly crumbled away. With the other arm, they banged on the barrier, screaming at me. “No, no! No! NO!” Finally, their body crumbled away. The dust laid there for a moment, before sinking into the void.

I remembered the searing pain from before, reaching to touch my stomach. My hand came away clean; no blood, nothing. That’s when I remembered I was dead.

I shot up, gasping. I blinked, looking around frantically. It was Dr. Robert’s office. To the left of me was Eva, a relieved but still smug look on her face. Dr. Robert sighed, catching my attention.

“There you are, kid. Thought we’d lost you for good there,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, still a little stunned. I felt extremely tired, and my heart felt like it hurt physically.

“So?” Dr. Robert asked. I gave him a questioning look. “Did you get what you wanted?” he asked.

“I think so,” I said. I stood up from the examination table, holding out my hand to him. “Thank you, doc. I think I need to get going.” He looked a little surprised, but took my hand.

“You make sure those boys give me a call,” Dr. Robert said. I nodded.

* * *

 

I sat in a motel room for two weeks with my phone turned off, thinking. Getting the facts to stick, sorting out the questions. To think that this had all started as a djinn hunt, many years ago. Now I had, for lack of a better word and understanding, killed a primordial being, come back to life thrice, and had some weird super-charged soul powers? Sometimes weird was just a little too weird.

I needed a break from all of the hunter hullabaloo; I needed some time to figure things out again. Not just all of those things, but my relationships. One relationship in particular. I still loved Charlie, that was true. And I had forgiven her. Yet that couldn’t seem to fix how I felt.

When I called Charlie, she didn’t pick up. I left a voicemail.

“Hey, Charlie. Sorry I haven’t answered your calls lately. My phone’s been off. I figured I would just call you directly this time, seemed more appropriate.” I sighed, continuing. “I’m taking a little break. From hunting, from everything. I need to… Figure everything out. Get my life back on track, now that I’m living it again. … I understand what you did Charlie. I know you would never do anything to hurt me, and neither would Sam or Dean. 

But.. You did. I have to deal with that, and I can’t deal with that while chopping off vamp’s heads. I’m going on a road trip, I don’t know where really, or for how long. Not too long, but… Enough time for me to feel better. But I promise I’ll come back, Charlie. I will. I don’t expect you to wait for me or anything, because that isn’t fair. But gay marriage legal now, according to Google, so maybe… I don’t know.

I’ll reach out when I get some sort of plan on my end. For now I’ll just be driving really. I’ll let you know.” I said. I was about to hang up, when I remembered. “Oh, and Charlie? One more thing. I love you.”

And so, the story ends as it began; with a phone call. I checked out of the motel twenty minutes later, getting into my stolen car. I threw my phone in the seat next to me, not paying it any attention for now. Right now, it was about me.

I put the keys in the ignition, pressing my foot to the gas. I smiled, looking at myself in the rear view mirror.

“Let’s get this party started.”


End file.
